FREEDOM IS NOT FREE



I watched the flag pass by one day.
It fluttered in the breeze.
A young Marine saluted it, and then
He stood at ease.

I looked at him in uniform
So young, so tall, so proud,
With hair cut square and eyes alert,
He'd stand out in any crowd.

I thought how many men like him
Had fallen through the years.
How many died on foreign soil?
How many mothers' tears?

How many pilots' planes shot down?
How many died at sea?
How many foxholes were soldiers' graves?
No, freedom is not free.

I heard the sound of "Taps" one night,
When everything was still.
I listened to the bugler play
And felt a sudden chill.

I wondered just how many times
That "Taps" had meant "Amen,"
When a flag had draped a coffin
Of a brother or a friend.

I thought of all the children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and husbands
With interrupted lives.

I thought about a graveyard
At the bottom of the sea,
Of unmarked graves in Arlington.
No, freedom is not free.

By Cadet Major Kelly Strong, Air Force Junior ROTC
Homestead Senior High School, Homestead, Fla., 1988

As it appeared in the "Dear Abby" Column
San Diego Union-Tribune, Memorial Day, 1997
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